MSNBC's Chris Matthews rants, 'Where was Obama tonight?'

10/3/12 11:12 PM EDT

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Wednesday had one major question after the debate: “Where was Obama tonight?”

Matthews — who said Wednesday night's showdown “wasn’t an MSNBC debate, was it?” because it didn’t mention the “key fighting points of this campaign" — blasted Obama’s debate performance, saying he went into the night “disarmed.” What Romney was doing tonight, unlike Obama, was "winning," Matthews said.

“Where was Obama tonight?” Matthews asked. “He should watch — well, not just ‘Hardball,’ Rachel [Maddow], he should watch you, he should watch the Reverend Al [Sharpton], he should watch Lawrence [O'Donnell], he would learn something about this debate. There's a hot debate going on in this country. Do you know where it’s being held? Here on this network is where we're having the debate. We have our knives out. We go after the people and the facts. What was he doing tonight? He went in there disarmed.”

Matthews described Obama’s debate performance as “like, ‘I’ll wait an hour and a half, I think I can get through this thing. I don’t even look at this guy.' Whereas Romney — I loved the split screen, staring at Obama, addressing him, like the prey. He did it just right. I'm coming at an incumbent. I've got to beat him. You gotta beat the champ, and I’m gonna beat him tonight. And I don't care what this guy moderator, whatever he thinks he is, because I'm going to ignore him. What was Romney doing? He was winning.”

Matthews said he didn’t know what Obama “was doing out there — he had his head down. He was enduring the debate rather than fighting it.”

Romney, though, went out there with a “plan” to dominate the evening, and he succeeded, Matthews said.

“He was going to dominate the time. He was going to be aggressive. He was going to push the moderator around, which he did effectively. He was going to relish the evening, enjoying it. Nothing to do with the words he spoke. Here's my question for Obama. I know he likes to say he doesn't watch cable television, but maybe he should start. Maybe he should start. I don't know how he let Romney get away with the crap he threw out tonight about social security,” Matthews said.

Matthews also criticized the president for not invoking Romney’s history at Bain Capital and his “47 percent” comments that were secretly filmed during a private fundraiser.